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Westwood Cycles Demo (1987)

In 1987, Westwood Cycles hosted yet another demo, this time bringing together The Gonz, Natas Kaupas, Jesse Martinez and myself. This may be one of the only times Mark, Natas and I have ever been videotaped skating together. What I remember most about this demo was that the locals were no longer content to just sit and watch. The talent in the streets had been evolving rapidly and with it came a more snide and ridiculing audience. Although there was plenty of support for us, there was also a great deal of dissatisfaction and frustration with even the idea of a “demo”. Where some locals were cheering for us, others began heckling and at a certain point the crowd began to turn on us. Then a bunch of local skaters started skating, completely taking over the demo and getting increasingly louder and louder cheers from the audience than we had been receiving. Suddenly, (not captured here) Natas began to skate away from the parking lot — Mark and I followed him. We skated fast and hard away from the scene and we ended up at some lunch-break picnic table, behind some business. It was just the three of us and without a word, we just started skating the picnic table, together. No audience, no heckling, no pressure. What no one understood was — We had to skate, it was who we were — It had nothing to do with being pros — And if we were going to get heckled over there, we would be just fine skating together over here. It was a strange moment in time — I’d only been skating for three years but here I was, fleeing a demo with my heroes who were now my friends. It was a sort of last stand for what had been. I guess that’s just the way it goes.